Alessia Tintori TSTA-P
Francesca Vignozzi TSTA-P
Anna Massi TSTA-P
Field of audience: P

Language: Italian (translated to English)
Level of audience: All

As relational TA therapists, our main focus lies in what happens in the encounter between two subjectivities, between the self and the world the other represents.

Since the other is by definition the stranger, the different one, though, we are hesitant in considering empathy the main driving force of healing when empathy is a means to cancel the limit, looking for a harmonious fusion in which the therapist uncritically understands, supports the patient.

By canceling the distance, we end up tapping into a  dangerous tendency toward omnipotence, projecting negativity onto the empty chair where the ‘other’ sits, demonizing them as the cause of our symptoms. But in so doing, doesn’t the oppressor become the oppressed and the Persecutor the Victim?

As therapists, are we not merely perpetuating the script of the individual inserted into a society that always expects an enemy to fight against?
Doesn’t the mechanism of psychic oppression exacerbate systemic oppression as well?

Transactional analysis teaches us that the ‘other’ is not only outside of us but also within us. If the world is in crisis, it is not solely due to external factors; our very existence is in crisis. Therefore, the therapeutic process must include, rather than
exclude, the encounter with diversity and the assumption of responsibility towards otherness.

In times as dark as these, therapists have a duty to be  subversive. This means having the courage to be the alien in the therapy room, to go beyond the client’s need for fusion and develop a vital empathy characterized by separateness, complexity, and deep respect for differences. This approach aims to prevent the reinforcement of the oppressor-oppressed dynamic, to rediscover the meaning of being with the other, and to foster a healthy co-existence, even if through a challenging and perpetual negotiation, in a perspective of mutual enrichment.